The winnerDisney's animation chief John Lasseter may be more readily associated with the Pixar brand, but he's a sentimentalist and a student of animation history, which is why several years ago he put his weight behind The Princess and the Frog. It paid off, as Disney's first hit hand-drawn 2D animated musical in some time soared to the top of the charts with $25m (£15.3m) in its first wide weekend, according to studio estimates. The film was already a winner in its first two weekends, frankly, when it was playing in two cinemas and averaging around $380,000 per site – a phenomenal amount.

The third weekend brought the expansion into 3,434 cinemas, which in turn produced a 3,244% increase in box office that flatters to deceive – it was always going to be a huge rise with that kind of rollout. Nonetheless it's rather charming to see this initial success for a traditional piece of animation in a year when the genre has produced such (sublime) eccentrics as Coraline, Fantastic Mr Fox and Mary And Max.

Warner Bros launched Invictus, Clint Eastwood's weakest movie since Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil came out 12 years ago, in third place on $9.1m from 2,125 cinemas. That was a good result for the studio. Furthermore, despite its limitations, the film is of the type to stick around for several weeks. Indeed, it may prosper further with awards attention for Morgan Freeman's performance as Nelson Mandela.

The loserThere wasn't really a loser. Going strictly by the numbers, New Moon fell more than any other movie in the top 10, tumbling 48% in its fourth weekend. But it's still fourth and who can argue with that $267.4m running total? Glance outside the top 20 and it's a shame that Nic Cage's best work in years in Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans has only managed to scrape together $1.2m. It deserves to make a lot more and this doesn't reflect well on the distributor, First Look.

The real storyThis year, box-office receipts will cross the $10bn in ticket sales for the first time ever. 2009 is already a record year at the North American box office and currently stands at $9.79bn compared with the previous high-water mark of $9.68bn set in 2007. The release of Avatar this week will see us past the $10m milestone and then some, when you factor in the smattering of potential biggies yet to open this year such as Sherlock Holmes and Did You Hear About the Morgans? While a rise in box-office receipts can usually be attributed to an increase in the average price of a ticket, this year the more telling statistic is that attendance is up by around 3%, proving that recessions are good for moviegoing because they offer a relatively inexpensive diversion.

The futureAvatar. It's opening pretty much everywhere this week and you've probably already read the early reviews. The UK press is excited and several of the leading US outlets are full of praise. It may not be the last frontier in storytelling, but the use of motion capture and 3D elements could change the face of cinema as we know it.